Amazon.com Inc plans to open dozens of grocery stores across the United States as it looks to expand in the food business, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Amazon is also exploring a strategy of strengthening its new supermarket brand by purchasing regional grocery chains that operate at least a dozen stores, according to the report.

Consumer sector saw some pick-up in competitive intensity with P&G getting aggressive though not alarming yet. Raw material basket is comfortable, but a sudden rise in crude and copra prices needs to be watched against. Except for Britannia that talked about slowdown in the month of December, other FMCG companies didn’t highlight any slowdown though were cautious on commentary near-term with upcoming elections. ITC, APNT, NEST, DABUR and JUBI are our sector Buys.

Global investment firm The Carlyle Group on Friday bought 9% stake in SBI Life Insurance from BNP Paribas Cardif for `4,635 crore. According to the bulk deal on BSE, group firm CA Emerald Investments purchased 9 crore shares at `515 per share, at a discount from the market price. The stock price of SBI Life on Friday closed at `612.25 gaining 5.47%.

Continuing the muted demand trend, sales of passenger vehicles in February for market leader Maruti Suzuki grew by marginal 0.2% year-on-year (y-o-y) at 1,36,912 units.

While passenger vehicles sales in the April-June quarter had clocked a 20% y-o-y growth, the trend has reversed since then. Post the September quarter results, Maruti Suzuki chairman RC Bhargava had pointed out that the festive season was a dull one.

The government Friday appointed former Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia as chairman of state-owned Bank of Baroda (BoB).

Bank of Baroda is set to become the third largest lender of the country after amalgamation with Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank effective April 1.

Accommodating passengers from its cancelled flights has become harder for Jet Airways as at least two airlines have cancelled their ‘flight interruption manifest (FIM) agreement’ with the airline.

This comes at a time when the cash-strapped airline is cancelling more than 100 flights daily due to grounding of its planes.

Ravneet Gill took charge as managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) of YES Bank on Friday for a three-year term, subject to shareholder approval.

A career banker with a long innings at Deutsche Bank, Gill comes in place of Rana Kapoor, the bank’s co-promoter and former MD and CEO.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) tightened the valuation methodology for liquid mutual funds (MFs) and did away with the open offer exemption given to those seeking to acquire assets undergoing insolvency resolution.

To make sure liquid schemes reflect the underlying portfolio risks, Sebi has said all debt papers with maturity of 30 days or more to be marked to market. Earlier, fund houses didn’t have to do so for securities that had less than 60-day maturity.

Tata Motors Ltd on Friday denied media reports that it was exploring options for its ailing luxury car unit Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Plc.

Two media reports said the company was considering options including a minority stake sale in the JLR unit or finding a venture partner that would jointly develop vehicles and lower costs.

Amazon is taking a new initiative called Project Zero in a bid to get rid of counterfeit products on its website. Once approved, Project Zero will allow the brands to directly flag and delete fake listings themselves.

As per the current process, companies need to forward a request to Amazon if they spot fake versions of their products. The e-commerce company then evaluates the claims and removes the counterfeit product. The process is quite similar to the copyright takedown process of YouTube, a tech platform that often sees false or misleading content.

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